oil upon canvas
by the drowsy poet
Summary: A little boy finds a box in the attic, and inside it is a portrait of a boy who talks to him. He thinks about his Daddy, and knows that he can't be a little boy anymore. Not when time is so fast, so fleeting. RLSB.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Written for Black Rose Blue's Favourite Character Bootcamp Challenge on HPFC, under the prompt of 'time.' My character is the darling Teddy... and here we have it, I guess. Enjoy and whatnot.

Disclaimer: Oh, how I disclaim. Disclaim disclaim disclaim.

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The boxes that the boy finds are sealed shut with something stronger than glue, and for a moment he almost wonders if this is right. If it's right to tear so blindly at the bindings of memory and time and the mess of long forgotten moments; to intrude on a life that he could have known once, but didn't, and is now locked away for no one to see.

In some ways the boy wants to know, in others not.

If he finds out, will the illusion shatter? Will the shards fall from the sky like glass, poisoning and corrupting all of what he thought to be real?

_Perhaps._

The little boy tears at them anyway, his chewed nails smarting from the force of his longing. Only once his cuticles begin to bleed does he stop. Dozens of tiny crimson specks dot the floorboards and he watches them dance, if just for a moment. Shakes his head. Imagines a world of scarlet rivers that seep into cracks so monstrous you could fall and your screams would never be heard.

When the boy was four years old his godfather told him he had an active imagination.

_'Careful, Teds. Don't want it running away with you.' _

The box suddenly opens of its own accord, and he doesn't jump or cry out or question it. Maybe this is the magic inside of him bursting at the seams, pulling and fighting and tugging for the chance to flourish. Maybe the box just wanted a change.

He can't blame it, really.

He finds photographs that look both recent and old at the same time.

Boys that have smiles so alive and so reckless that they can't be just the effect of a single captured moment some time long before thoughts of war of death were ever present. Yet boys that have smiles so innocent and so naive that they must be too young to understand that this isn't just a game, isn't just a trick-this life they're living. They don't yet know what the boy knows and the boy feels older than they ever were. Ever _could_ be.

He spots his Daddy, his Daddy with the scars and the fringe and the grin, and his throat aches. He doesn't cry. Crying is for babies and he has to be_ old,_ he has to be _old_ for daddy and daddy's friends and the pretty girl with the hair like Aunt Ginny's.

More photographs now, and the people in them are happy then sad then excited then distracted. They are shy then confident then moving then still, and with each changing expression the blue-haired boy wonders how these people aren't living, because they seems so real and they seem so whole and they seem so _wonderful. _

He sees his daddy's first day on the Hogwarts Express; a small and scrawny and washed out little first year. He sees his daddy on his last day, and now he is taller and more lanky and has a smile so big it could split his face in two.

Time is a funny thing, the little boy thinks. It's fleeting and it's scary and it ticks and it ticks and it ticks away, the ticking of the time bomb; the ticking of a life. Hands that move closer and closer to an end that looks so far but isn't, and then when you're finally there you wonder where the all this time went.

Teddy Lupin places the photographs back in the box and his hands are careful and his body is still. He puts the box away on a shelf and he walks down the attic steps and his eyes are clear and his heart is beating.

His heart is beating, and his heart is a clock.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Aren't they the same thing, when it all comes down it?

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

He won't wait for it to go off. He knows it will, eventually, but there's no use just waiting. Wait and watch and wait and watch and _bam_, off it goes.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

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**A/N:** Ehehehehe. Only 49 to go. _Pah. _It'll be easy.

Reviews make me happy. *hint hint*


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I guess this wasn't meant to be put here, but it came into mind and I guess it fits. I don't know. If you ignore the first section, it can be read separately. Um. This is for Paula, my darling Exceeds Expectations, in the Gift Giving Extravaganza which I so conveniently forgot about. SORRY IT'S LATE. I LOVE YOU.

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The clock is still ticking, though it is 3 years later and he's almost forgotten the thoughts that had plagued him for what seemed like eternity. The mocking taunts of clocks and rivers and time running out have quite vanished.

He is 10, now. He is 10 and the world is still no clearer, though he pretends he understands when the grown-ups talk about War and this supposed "_fragility of life,_" assuring they enunciate every word as though he's not Nearly-11.

He will nod sagely, and Aunt Ginny will smile; the same cracked smile she uses so often. She opens the door, and the flimsy curtain looks yellowed against the pale of her skin.

She thinks he can't see when she leans against the wooden frame, the sigh heavy upon her lips.

They don't let him go too far outside.

It is October, and the leaves are a multitude of oranges and golds and crimsons, and crunch satisfyingly beneath his boots. The sky is the colour of a faded bruise.

When he reaches the fence that signals his inability to venture any further, he turns back. The key he has kept for so long is a dead weight in his pocket, and his fingers itch to smooth away the rust.

The clock continues to tick, yet he has grown accustomed to the ache and no _longer hears it._

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

He takes careful steps. It is not a secret_,_ he reminds himself, but something inside of him feels as though he should keep it to himself. The knowledge that it is _there_, _waiting; his_, is warm down his throat.

(The ladder creaks when he pulls it down.)

The box has not moved in the 3 years since he touched it. The only physical change he can see is the thick layer of dust that has accumulated in the time away. He brushes away at it with the sleeve of his jumper, and it springs to life in streams.

He coughs, and the noise is foreign in the silence.

It is only once it is on the floor that he sees others, teetering in haphazard stacks, old and worn and gloriously untouched.

There are lifetimes hidden away, and they are all his.

The first picture that he sees was not there before. At least, not that he remembers. It shows two boys sitting beneath a tree, the dappled sunlight casting patterns onto their arms. The first is grinning, arm wrapped possessively around his friend.

Teddy cannot quite distinguish the other boy. He is ducking out of frame, muttering choked _no_'s to the former, who clutches desperately at the rapidly decreasing arm.

The second boy vanishes, and his friend pouts, sullen in this new solitude.

Teddy laughs.

"Surely you're used to posing by yourself, Sirius," a muffled voice sounds, then: "I've seen that bloody awful portrait you had done."

The boy still in frame – Sirius, it seems – sticks out his tongue at the perpetrator. "Remus, my dear," (and Teddy hardly has time to feel shock because the voice continues, putting on an air of mock - importance) "that is because I am the heir to the Most Noble and Ancient Family of Blacks, and my memory must live on in the lives of others. How else are people going to remember me?"

"Make a _real_ difference?" The voice – his _Dad_, Teddy thinks – retorts, and Sirius is up out of the frame in seconds. There is a brief moment of emptiness – the tree swaying perfectly in the breeze, the only resemblance that they were there at _all_ a slight indent in the grass – before the two boys are rolling back into shot in what seems to be a wrestling match.

Teddy bites his lip, and moves on.

The box has an enlargement charm, he discovers. There are old textbooks and memorabilia – items that would surely mean more to him if he knew their story – when he stumbles upon something larger. A wooden frame, oily canvas beneath his fingers. He pulls it out.

It is a portrait of the boy from the picture. They had been joking about it, he recalls, and Teddy understands why. The artist has attempted to capture the boy in some false sense of haughtiness, but Sirius has struggled to defy, and instead looks pained.

The boy blinks.

"Hey," he says, and runs a hand through the raven hair falling into his eyes. Now that he is closer up, each feature so lovingly captured upon the canvas, Teddy can see that the teenager is quite beautiful; an array of defined cheek bones, strong jaw lines, and pale – almost alabaster – skin.

"Uh, hi." Teddy replies once he has found his voice, then, with a sudden burst of unexpected confidence – "It must be awfully dull, stuck in a painting for years."

Sirius grins.

"Nah, not so much. You've just got to think deep, you know? If a tree falls in a forest and no one was there to see it, did it really happen?" He pauses. "Same with this, I guess. I'm only really here when someone's looking at me."

"Oh."

There is a brief, awkward silence.

"I'm Sirius," he says, and sticks out a hand before realising that it is useless.

Teddy smiles. "I know," he replies. "I'm Teddy."

"How do you – oh, never mind. Hi, Teds. Cool hair."

They look at each other, before Sirius pipes up again.

"How long's it been, then? I mean, they put the lid on me a while back, I think. A man loses track when he's not around. Must be...what, _15 years_?" He stops, then – "Wait, that'd make me thirty. Ew."

He seems to be talking to himself rather than Teddy, but the blue haired boy replies nonetheless.

"Actually," he begins, "it's a bit more than that, I think."

Sirius looks put out. "Oh, right. Where am I, then? Still in Grimmauld Place?" He looks around him, but the only surroundings are a large expanse of beige coloured wallpaper.

"No, um – you're in Harry's attic. He's my godfather. Harry Potter?" he says, when Sirius still looks blank.

"Potter? Shit, Prongs had a _kid_? And Prongs' kid has a _godson_? Christ, we must be getting on a bit. Who's the Mum?"

"I, er, I don't know her last name, but I think she was called Lily-something."

"He married _Evans?_" Fuck – _oh_, wait, sorry Teddy, I mean – gosh, he will be pleased. Damned right too. I can't believe it – she final – "

"I – um, I think you know my Dad. Remus Lupin?"

The shock in Sirius' eyes at this news is different than his shock at James'. Something in them deadens – the ice that greets them strangely suiting their grey tone.

"_Remus_ had a kid?"

His voice is painfully quiet.

Teddy nods.

"I – um, if you don't mind me asking, Teddy, but who's your Mum?"

The little boy worries at a patch of loose skin on his thumb nail. "I – she isn't here. I never met her."

Rather than looking sorry, as most people do at this information, Sirius lights up once more.

"Oh, okay. So you're adopted then, right?"

"Something like that."

They stare at each other. Sirius seems like he wants to say something but it won't come out – his lips not functioning in time with his brain.

"Teddy!"

The call is from downstairs. It's Ginny – the stress evident in her voice. He can imagine her carding a worn hand through her hair, jittery on her feet.

"I – er, I need to go, Sirius. I'm sorry."

He motions to put the lid back on the box, and the action is almost hurried because he's afraid of the expression on the boy's face.

"Wait! I mean – um, Teddy, is your Dad okay? Is he happy? Am_ I_ with him?"

Teddy pauses, and thinks.

"Yes. I suppose you are."

The expression vanishes with Teddy's worry. He murmurs a quick "_I'll come back, I promise,_" and the portrait is enveloped in darkness. It doesn't matter if he does or he doesn't. Sirius won't know. He has gone with Teddy's view of him.

"Teddy, where are you?"

The boy continues to tick, for he is clockwork. His bones creak and clatter, working slowly as they regain their mobility. He stretches out, his hands touching each wall.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

"'M coming," he calls, and he turns around. He doesn't look back, but the key stays hidden beneath his pillow.

It is cool beneath his cheek.

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